Boycott

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Opposition candidates in Nigeria's presidential election, which is scheduled for Saturday, have threatened a boycott unless the polling is delayed to ensure what they have called "a level playing field for all." Their decision, announced Tuesday night, threw a chaotic election season into deeper confusion and raised the possibility that the long-planned vote might not take place Saturday. Nigeria's government rejected the demand, saying yesterday that the vote would proceed.

WASHINGTON -- The Black Coaches Association yesterday called off a proposed boycott this weekend of men's Division I basketball games after receiving an offer from the Justice Department to hear its concerns and try to mediate its differences with the NCAA.At an afternoon news conference on Capitol Hill, BCA executive director Rudy Washington and Congressional Black Caucus chairman Kweisi Mfume, D.-Md., accompanied by Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson, outlined those concerns, which deal mostly with the lack of opportunities given prospective college athletes from economically and educationally deprived backgrounds.

The Oakland, Calif., branch of PEN, the international writers' group, is boycotting prime-time network news for the month of April, in protest against the negative coverage of blacks and Hispanic Americans.Anyone who pays attention to television news may sympathize to some degree with the complaint by Ishmael Reed, chairman of the Oakland PEN media committee, that the networks tend to "associate black and Hispanic people exclusively with drugs, crime, unwed parenthood, welfare, homelessness, child abuse and rape."

HILTON HEAD, S.C. -- In what may be the first sign of the NAACP backing away from the activism that marked the tenure of fired executive director Benjamin F. Chavis, organization leaders yesterday postponed a threatened economic boycott of South Carolina.At war with state officials over the flying of the Confederate battle flag above the Capitol dome, Dr. Chavis had threatened in July to strike at the state's $7.3 billion tourism industry with a black boycott unless the flag comes down.But still struggling to recover from the controversy surrounding Dr. Chavis' dismissal and faced with splintered local support, national NAACP leaders instead came to this sedate island resort to deliver fiery rhetoric, lead 600 chanting protesters on a two-mile march and then announce that they would wait for legal action to run its course before deciding what further action to take.

The e-mail alerts zip across the nation, fomenting outrage: Levi-Strauss donates to Planned Parenthood. Don't buy their blue jeans! Johnson & Johnson advertises Tylenol in a gay magazine. Click here to register your disgust! In the past 12 months, conservative advocacy groups have urged their millions of members to stop buying brand after trusted brand. Boycotts have long been a mainstay of both the right and the left, but analysts say there's a new intensity to the protests, as social conservatives test their ability to punish companies for taking liberal stances.

The members of the Black Coaches Association were upset enough to contemplate a boycott because they feel the NCAA is denying opportunities to black students by limiting scholarships. Their behavior is misguided and self-serving.Yesterday they delayed taking action. But if they truly were upset about the plight of black students being denied opportunity, they would put a permanent end to the threat of a boycott. They would think this thing through and realize that their stand is harmful, not helpful, to the vast majority of black youngsters.

WASHINGTON - Boycotts are an effective means for achieving social change. The Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott was a key point in the struggle for civil rights. Southern Baptists are boycotting the Walt Disney Co. to protest the company's moves away from family-friendly entertainment. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has made headlines for its high-profile boycotts of South Carolina for flying the Confederate battle flag atop the state's capitol and most recently the Adam's Mark hotel chain over what it claims are discriminatory practices.

BLOEMHOF, South Africa -- The small white pig wandering around the back of a men's clothing store was the latest weapon in the political and social war being waged across South Africa.At times the war is fought with bullets and clubs. Eventually, it will be fought with ballots. These days in this small-town battlefield, the chosen weapons are a boycott and counter-boycott, with the accompaniment of stone throwing, tear gas, arrests, threats and other intimidations.It is a pattern that has become familiar in towns across South Africa as the boycott has become popular with blacks trying to make national policy into local reality.

WASHINGTON -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said yesterday that the civil rights organization will continue economic sanctions against South Carolina until the Confederate flag no longer flies over its Capitol. He also announced plans for a march in Tallahassee, Fla., next month to protest Gov. Jeb Bush's proposal to eliminate racial and gender preferences in admissions at the state's public universities and in granting contracts. "We will be there, thousands and thousands of us," Mfume told about 250 people gathered for the 91st annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The Maryland AFL-CIO yesterday said it had launched a statewide boycott of Crown Central Petroleum Corp.'s gasoline to pressure the Baltimore company to end a nine-month lockout of workers at a Pasadena, Texas, refinery."